A new study conducted Caribou Digital and funded by Mozilla has shown that ad revenue models to pay for online content won’t be as effective for the Global South as it gets online. This is in part due to their low incomes and decreased ability to buy advertised goods. Furthermore, advertisers have to deal with the constraints on the user experience based on low-quality hardware, unreliable internet, and a lack of local content which means people engage differently with content and services.
According to Mozilla, one of the factors contributing to advertising’s ineffectiveness is that data in emerging markets is expensive and therefore people turn to proxy browsers such as UC Browser and Opera Mini which compress data and block ads. Of 309 million users around the world using mobile ad blockers in 2016, 89 million were from India, according to a report from PageFair.
Another reason advertising is ineffective in those parts of the world is that people have a smaller digital footprint. Mozilla wrote:
“Limited online shopping, a glut of open source Android devices, and a tendency toward multiple, fragmented social media accounts dilutes the value of personal data to advertisers.”
The report offers an alternative financial model for the Global South, saying that “sponsored data” or “incentivised action” models that offer users free data in return for engagement with an advertiser’s content are one way to getting those ads out to more people.
